


Behaving As The Wind Behaves

by Smaragdina



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Tentacle Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:32:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smaragdina/pseuds/Smaragdina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Corvo is a wretched shadow of a man, and there are no words for the things he wants." Originally written for the kink meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behaving As The Wind Behaves

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."

“What would you give,” the Outsider asks, the skies of the Void blazing brilliant and blue around him, “to protect her from me?”

Corvo wets his lips and looks around to buy himself time. He is not sure if the world they walk through is made of water or wind; he is not sure if he’s dreaming, or what ‘dream’ really means in a place like this. Reality is slippery, here. Questions, moreso. This is a question that the Outsider has posed many, many times in the years that Emily has been on the throne. Corvo has put forth many answers.

_Anything._

_Everything._

_Anything that is mine to give._

This time, he answers “myself.”

 The Outsider’s eyes crinkle up at the corners. Black and black. “Am I so cruel, that I need protecting from?”

“Yes.”

“Careful, Corvo. You’ve been listening to your Overseers overmuch.” The air around them vibrates, a low steady note rather like whalesong blossoming around them _. Laughter_. “I am selfish, yes, fickle, vain, constant and changeable both at once –”

“Don’t forget possessive,” Corvo supplies, and this time when the Outsider laughs its _true_.

“Indeed. And your little Emily –” He slips an arm around Corvo’s shoulders as they walk. This is not what makes Corvo recoil. The Outsider’s arm is loose and utterly casual. Cool. It holds nothing of strength or fire, nothing of expectation, would be _comforting_ if not for the word _Emily_ hanging on the air between them.

“She is,” the Outsider murmurs. Thumb stroking the line of Corvo’s shoulder blade. Thoughtful. It sounds as if he is speaking to himself. “Possessive. Childish. Cruel, if you let her. She is truly such a boring child. You have such potential, and your devotion to her is utterly common. I do not understand.”

“Don’t – don’t talk about her.”

“Why? What would you give?” The Outsider does not seem to notice or care about the way Corvo is fighting to keep from wrenching away. “You are a mess of contradictions, my dear. You interest me and bore me a the same time. You know that you should pull away from me, now, but you don’t wish to. You know that you are spoiling the child, but you don’t stop. You know that your life will continue to be hollow, standing beside her throne, living in her shadow, and she will never give you more than a pale echo of the life you had before and in time you will turn _bitter_ , but this is exactly what you desire and even though at night you _wish to_ you cannot move to change it –”

“Stop,” says Corvo softly.

The hand around his shoulders is gone. The cloth of his coat where it had been is chilled, soaked through, and Corvo shivers. Something about the steady weight of the Outsider’s touch on him is better than the cold it leaves behind. He watches the being take a step back, study him, gesture at his coat with a slight motion. “May I see?”

Corvo puts his hands in his pockets and smiles and says nothing.

There is no _may_ , here in the Void. There is only what the Outsider desires. Still, the fact that the being has asked instead of insisting is… well. Promising.

Corvo has a funny feeling that if he says _no_ , outright, the Outsider will laugh and delight over the idea of being refused. He may even allow him to do so. But this is predictable. The air here is strange, and the being before him is fickle and possessive and cruel indeed, and if Corvo does not hold his attention he will seek out other playthings. He must strive, always, to be fascinating.

And besides.

There is a curious _light_ in the Outsider’s oil-black eyes, and part of him wants to see where it leads.

Corvo says nothing, and does nothing, and he smiles at the Outsider. The other man cocks his head. The wind around them ripples like water, and the minutes flow on.

“Take it off, my dear,” the Outsider orders softly, at last, and Corvo huffs a laugh and does as asked.

It’s been years, and he’s no longer quite so self-conscious about showing the scars – certainly not here, certainly not to a being as sexless as the one who studies him now. It’s almost like he’s not being watched at all. He shucks his coat, his shirt, toes out of his boots and stops when the Outsider holds up a hand. He’s left in just his trousers. The being’s black eyes skate over the scars on his skin, and it’s the nothingness in them – not the chill air, not the exposure – that makes Corvo shiver.

He does not move when the Outsider circles around him like a shark in the water, and the shadows trail around him, and when the other man trails a cool finger over the line of a whip-weal on his back the shadows _stay there_ and cling to Corvo’s skin.

“You’re dreaming, Corvo.” The Outsider murmurs. His breath stirs his hair. It smells of the sea. “But when you dream, you’re always this. If I build the tower around you the Empress’s blood is always fresh upon the stones. I could give you your old self back in the Void, no scars, no Mark, and you refuse me. You don’t _want_ me to.” He traces the lines up Corvo’s back, walks around, brushes the tips of his fingers down his arm following the constellations of burn marks, and wherever he touches the shadows stay, cool on Corvo’s skin. “Your past is still written upon your body,” he says. “Your memories.” Shadows cold against remembered heat. “Your guilt.”

“It’s not like I can escape it,” says Corvo. It comes out tight, because he’s trying not to shiver at the shadows that find and overlay and cover all the marks on him, about how the cold they leech into him isn’t entirely unwelcome.

“You can. Even Daud did not wallow so.” The Outsider hums, thoughtful. Tilt’s Corvo’s head up to brush the tip of his index finger down the burn mark on his face. “Tell me. If you were free, what would you do?”

“I don’t –” Corvo takes a slow breath. The shadows are draped over him like a cool shroud, and it’s... _soothing_ , somehow, even though he doesn’t want to look down to see them slithering over him. Doesn’t want to look up into the Outsider’s eyes to see the intensity there, the terrifying emptiness. In his silence, the Outsider goes on.

“If you were free,” he murmurs, the grip on Corvo’s face just strong enough to make him look him in the eye, “if you could be sure Emily were safe, if she didn’t need you, if you had no more guilt binding you to her, if your life was finally yours to do with as you wished, if she were gone –”

“Stop –”

“If she were _dead_ –”

Corvo _yells_ and lunges for him, but the shadows are thick, and because this is the Void and they do not move like normal shadows they curl around his arms and shoulders and legs and take him down. He finds himself on his knees, straining forward, the Outsider standing impassively not a handsbreath before him. He’s smiling. “What would you give?” he asks.

“I _swear_ , if I could kill you –!”

“No. You wouldn’t.” The Outsider bends and slides a hand over his mouth when he tries to speak. It’s perfectly cold. Taste of salt against his lips. Corvo glares at him and tries not to shiver when the shadows that curl over his shoulders _move_ , soft, slipping over one another. “If I offered you release you would not take it,” says the Outsider softly. “You _need_ that tether. You are _hollow_.  You do not know who you are without someone to devote yourself to.”

He’s shivering, and the shadows are so cold, and it’s not really unwelcome at all, and the being’s black eyes are an ocean into which he could probably drown himself and never wake. That’s not an entirely unwelcome thought, either. Corvo’s breath hisses out between the Outsider’s fingers, out between his own teeth. His shoulders curve under the gentle press of the shadows snaking over them, until he’s utterly bowed before the Outsider’s feet, until his eyes are down, until the being’s hand slips from his mouth and the sound of his breathing is so loud upon the air. It comes shuddering out of him. The shadows are coiled and moving around and over his back, snaking down his arms, pinning him to the tilted floor. It’s like being cradled by cool water, if water had motion and _intent_ , and all the tension goes draining out of him because –

Because he does not want to resist, not truly.

Because he _can’t._

Because –

“You know what I say is true, my dear,” the Outsider breathes, and his words are darkness that thread fingers through his hair, and Corvo shudders and answers “yes.”

The Outsider’s shadows melt against his skin.

It’s not a cloak of them. They unravel. They lick at all the scars mapped over his body, insinuate themselves against him in waves, and their touch is cold and inexorable and _curious_ as the sea. It would be terrifying if it weren’t so very _real._ Corvo keeps himself perfectly still and tries to ignore the pounding of blood in his ears. He should be afraid. He’s not. He doesn’t think the Outsider means to devour him, if only because he’s far too fascinating to lose – or, Corvo thinks nonsensically, if he does, he’ll find a way to make it pleasant.

That thought is far more appealing than it should be. His tongue passes out over his lips. The tendrils of shadow are all around him, and this is a _consuming_ , yes, indeed. He is held up by them, and held down by them.

And they delicately _twitch_ in answer when the Outsider twitches his fingers.

Corvo forgets to breathe, for a moment. Mouth shocked open. A tendril snakes up the curve of his throat, cleaved tight against his suddenly-racing pulse. Kisses his jaw. The side of his face. Flicks at the air as if it can taste the noise that comes stuttering out of his mouth.

It’s not a moan. It’s more like a whimper.

“Corvo,” the Outsider chides, evenly, “patience.” And that is so _wrong_ that Corvo tries to laugh, and the laugh turns broken at the feel of cool fingers sliding down his spine to curve around the sharp bone of his hips.

He has to close his eyes because this is the Void and the Void is mad,because the shadows are easing  his trousers down, because the being standing before him is so lax and seemingly, horribly, _unconcerned –_

“No,” the Outsider murmurs. “Not quite. I’m not _cruel,_ my dear.”

And –

Corvo shouldn’t be hard. It’s completely wrong (but this is the Void, the Void _isn’t real_ ). He should be screaming, running, curling up in a ball against the darkness slicking over him, but it’s cool and lovely and it feels so _good,_ somehow, to be touched. Even like this. He bites down on a moan. He doesn’t have to do anything and he doesn’t have to think. The shadow tracing up the underside of his cock is soft, half smoke, _maddening,_ and Corvo does not think, does not want to, presses himself against that touch, and when another tendril wraps around him the sound he makes is a helpless disbelieving whine.

He does not think, either, when the tendril tracing the scar on his cheek slithers down to flick against his lips. He’s panting. Somehow. Already. It’s the easiest thing to open his mouth.

Taste of salt. Brine. Something clean like flesh. He doesn’t know what he expected but it’s not _this –_ shadows slicking over his teeth and filling the space inside his mouth. Pleasant weight on his tongue. Can darkness have weight? Doesn’t matter, now. Not with the omnipresent slide of that darkness like clever fingers and wet like tongues over his skin. Corvo looks down to see one twine itself over his knuckles and lick at the mark on the back of his hand. It sends electricity crackling down his spine and his hips surge forward.

Shadow tonguing at the head of his cock. Two more wrapped loosely around and sliding over and over themselves. Not enough. Too slow. _Too much_.

“Shh,” the Outsider says quietly. Hand carding through his hair. “Shh. Let go.”

Corvo knows he’s not just speaking of the way his muscles are drawn tight and the air comes cold and over-fast through his nose. They’d been talking about duty, he thinks desperately (it’s hard, so hard, to think at all and he _doesn’t want to_ ). They’d been talking about _guilt_. He can’t speak, not around the smooth weight in his mouth, but the word he would say is _please._

 _Please,_ he would gasp, _please, I can’t, take me – make me –_

He wants surrender and sleep and ending _,_ he wants guilt that never ends and absolution that will not come. Corvo is a wretched shadow of a man, and there are no words for the things he wants.

There are no words for this.

They spread him. Lift him so gently, ease apart his thighs, so that he is still bowed and kneeling but open. Defenseless, at least against this. He makes a confused sound of betrayal when the shadows coiled around his cock go still. They are chilled, wet, _slick,_ and when one eases down –

Corvo makes a sharp noise and _seizes._

“Shh,” repeats the Outsider. Hand so light in his hair. Soothing. “Just. Let. Go.”

He can’t. He wants to. He shouldn’t want to. He _can’t._

Ah.

There. _Press_. He knows its only the width of a finger for now but it feels like more, this is all _so much more_ – “ _Let go_ ,” says the Outsider again, voice even and patient, and one of his shadows gives a sweet twist on his neglected cock. Corvo’s whole body twitches. He can’t tell if the dampness on his face is water or tears or sweat. It’s not pain, not exactly, not at all; it’s intrusion, it’s _possession_ –

And it’s much more than a finger-width, now.

Second. Inside him. Moving.

Counterpoint.

Corvo goes limp against the darkness holding him as he shivers apart. He can’t breathe. It doesn’t matter. He can just try to take in more of the tendril that slides inside his mouth, lips stretched wide, _stretched wide_. He spares a single absurd thought that this is terrifyingly obsceneand then the thought flies apart like a man caught in Wall of Light. Meticulously and utterly taken apart, piece by piece. Disintegrating into nothing. That’s what this is.

He whimpers around the heavy taste of the sea in his mouth. It slips from him for a moment and the air is unbearably sweet, and the Outsider’s hand moves from his hair to stroke the side of his face. Corvo turns into the touch; he can’t help it. He kisses at the center of the Outsider’s palm. He takes the man’s fingers in his mouth, absently, teeth scraping the pad of his thumb for a moment before it’s withdrawn and the coil of shadow replaces it.

Time passes. He’s not sure how much; but there is nothing frantic about this, nothing quick. There is no hurry in the Void. The ropes of shadow upon and inside him are lazy, utterly so, and Corvo stops counting the push and pull of them as he stops counting his breaths or the increasingly _absent_ press of his hips. None of that is important. The Outsider’s shadows writhe against him and he’s not so much fucking them as he is being held, filled, _fucked by,_ inhabited as surely as if he is no longer in control of his own skin.

“It’s alright, Corvo,” the Outsider murmurs, “you never have been.” His fingers play at the ends of his hair. He tilts Corvo’s head up and brushes his mouth lightly over his temple, and that, somehow, is what does it – there are tears in Corvo’s eyes and the air comes sharp through his nose because his mouth (all of him) is so full, but _this_ is what sets him falling apart. Press of dry lips to his skin.

His hips snap forward and the air around them both gives an echoing _snap_ as well, something breaking, and he’s babbling and it doesn’t make it past the choking weight in his mouth. The shadows around and inside him wring the orgasm out of him. Drop by drop by drop.

And they do not _stop_.

Corvo sags against them. He is wretched and pliable and empty within their grip, and he does not need to look up and see the quiet satisfaction on the Outsider’s face to know how true this really is. He is hollow, and needs to be filled.

The shadows move in.

They do.

That’s all there is. The Void fades around him. The Outsider whispers about need and price, place and belonging, longing and devotion, but they are lost in the air between them. It’s just this – shivering, endlessly, far past sense or pleasure or any pain, _possessed_ as the darkness swallows him down and moves within him without cease and the hand strokes so soothing and comforting over his hair.


End file.
